We All End Up Alone
by guitar-catlady
Summary: Sam guesses he could be hanging inside of the dollar machine, now. No sense taking him again, just leave him there. He'll find his way inside and make friends out of the stale chocolate bars.


**oh god what am i doing**

**hello yes i am writing again and yeah this is a prologue**

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Sam had always been the cocky, one-liner extraordinaire of the little S.H.I.E.L.D. ensemble (excluding Wade, but he was merely a drifter. Sam was permanent,) until _he _showed up. Him and his stupid red and blue suit. Him and his stupid wise-cracks about Fury. That used to be Sam's job.

Spiderman was going to be Sam's replacement, is what Fury implied. He was going to take over as head of the group and win their affection, and Sam would have no choice but to back off. He could cast enough cocky insults to remain recognized, but Sam knew he'd eventually become the least important member of the team.

Danny always noticed Sam's moping, it was like he had a sixth sense for sadness. He reassured Sam time and time again that Spiderman was not his replacement, that they were all equals, part of one whole, yadda yadda. Sam usually listened to Danny, until Danny started favouring Peter over him. They had their weekly sparring sessions, Peter was Danny's K'un-L'un marathon pick, or something like that. Sam couldn't be bothered to remember.

The only way Sam got any recognition after Spiderman's arrival, was to annoy Peter to no end. He sent Flash Thompson after him sometimes, just to laugh when he found Peter crammed inside a locker. He purposefully took the easier baddies so that Peter would get hit more. He stole his socks, filled his mask with whipped cream, made the Iron Spider suit go rogue. Sam did everything in his power to make Peter's life a bit more difficult.

But Peter never took any major revenge, which made Sam uncomfortable. There was the odd time where there would be an actual bucket sitting where he'd last left his helmet, or his underwear had been webbed to the ceiling, but Sam never got pushed into lockers, or left hanging upside-down from a skyscraper. He kept waiting for the day that there would be webbing across the top of the stairs, and he'd go tumbling down, but that day never came.

Danny still tried to reassure Sam, even after him and Peter had been doing God knows what together, that Sam was still as valuable as he was before Spiderman arrived. Sometimes Sam would believe him, like when Fury chose him for foreman, or when Luke asked if he wanted to spar. But Sam would be reminded later that Peter had taken away his friends and his role away when they all went over the Harry's, or he managed to carry them to safety with his webbing.

Though Sam wasn't mad at Ava, Luke, and Danny. He was mad at Peter. They still tried to incorporate Sam into their lives, but Peter was winning them over. His charm, his sass, his care. They were all a step above Sam's. Peter was more likeable, and that was that. Sam just couldn't compare.

And not only did Peter care about his friends, they cared for him too. He had people who cared about him. He had friends before joining S.H.I.E.L.D. Even Fury had a soft spot for the friendly neighbourhood Spiderman. Sam couldn't remember that last time he'd been cared about, not after his family left him on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s doorstep.

A couple of years of training to get a feel for the powers the helmet gave him, and then he met the Guardians of the Galaxy, who felt like family for another year or so. They let him take his shots, they believed in him, and sometimes, he almost felt like part of their team. But Sam knew he wasn't meant to be a Guardian. So he went back to Fury, and met his new team. And they were _his _team. He tried to lead them similar to Starlord, but that often got them tripped up. Sam was no Starlord, Sam was barely a leader, but he tried. He worked so hard to lead a team and keep them safe.

But when Peter came, he was better. He knew how to keep people safe, he'd been saving New York for just over a year. All Sam knew how to do was knock out drones and disarm aliens.

Sam wanted to be like Peter. Strong, smart, caring. But it wasn't Sam's destiny to be like Spiderman. Sam hated Spiderman. Sam didn't know his destiny anymore. He used to think his destiny was to be a space-saving superhero, which was later proven untrue.

Sometimes, when Sam is thinking about his time with the Guardians of The Galaxy, he remembers the times when him and Gamora would be the only ones awake after a long mission, and he'd sit on the floor of the cockpit as she flew their ship through the cosmos. She'd tell him about all of her battles, even the losses. She'd tell him about all the different universes she believed to exist, her theories about their universe, the planets she'd watched burn.

And there was one time, Gamora had told Sam about her father. As she steered their ship back towards Earth, after a long and tiring battle with the Chitauri, she had looked over her shoulder to see Sam standing in the corner. She'd given him a lazy grin and motioned to the chair beside her. Sam had thought it was strange she asked him to sit, but he took the chair regardless.

_"What's keeping you awake tonight?" Gamora turned her attention back towards the screen, Sam shrugged._

_ "I just couldn't get comfortable, I guess." He watched the stars race past, a blur of speckled darkness, vast. Gamora raised an eyebrow. "Plus, Drax the Snorer." Sam chuckled at his own joke, but Gamora's face stayed stiff._

_ "You are not being entirely truthful." She commented._

_ "Yeah, well," Sam scratched the back of his neck and sighed. "I'm more than a little homesick, I guess."_

_ "We are bringing you back home now," Gamora reassured him, in a voice softer than her usual tone. Her heightened senses often gave Sam the jitters, especially when she didn't comment on something she sensed._

_ "I know, I just... I miss my family." Gamora turned her head to look at him._

_ "You are not able to see your family?" She inquired, though Sam had a feeling she knew the answer. He glanced at her from the corner of his eye, to find her expression was questioning. There was an answer to a question she couldn't figure out. Sam felt a little proud of that._

_ "No, they," Sam swallowed and looked out at the stars again. "My mom wants me to learn how to control the Nova powers first." He sighed. "_'You're not stepping foot in this household until you control that helmet, young man.'_" _

_ "You have gained a lot of knowledge about your powers since you last saw her, I believe?"_

_ Sam smiled slightly. "I'm still a danger to my family, though."_

_ Gamora turned back to the console, dropping their speed down an interval. "Have I ever told you of my family?" She asked him._

_ Sam stared at her. "Uh, no." Gamora's mouth twitched, almost a smile, but not quite._

_ "I did not believe so," She stated, before taking a breath and plunging into her story. "There was a battle, a couple of days after my birth, between the __Zen-Whoberians__ and the Church of Truth. An Eternal warrior found me unconscious in the aftermath, a man named Thanos. He was able to repair my body to peak health in under two decades, though he altered my perception so that I would not see his true nature." Gamora licked her lips before continuing. "When I awoke, he trained me into becoming the most deadly assassin in his following. He ordered me to take out the Church of Truth's leader, once I was strong enough. That's how I met Warlock, we took down the Church's leader together. When I reported back to Thanos, I was unaware that Warlock had re-altered my perception, so that I saw my father for who he was."_

_ "So..." Sam tried to piece together her story, as best he could with his limited information of aliens. "Why haven't you returned home? To your real parents?"_

_ "My parents are dead." Gamora stated bluntly. "They were killed in the battle. The entire __Zen-Whoberian planet was demolished. I am the only the survivor." _

_ Sam blinked in surprise. "I'm s-"_

_ "Thanos is still alive and trying to find Warlock and I, as we are still trying to find him." Gamora cut Sam off. She flicked a switch on the console, and the ship shuttered. "I still owe Thanos gratitude for saving my life as a child, but I am also resentful for the lives he made me take."_

_ "You're caught between a rock and a hard place." Sam said simply. Gamora stared at him blankly. "It's an Earth saying, my bad."_

_ "So it is." She nodded and brought the ship's speed back up to its previous interval. Sam leaned back in the chair and watched the stars go by._

_ "Have you ever tried to find more of your people?" Sam asked. "Like, on other planets and stuff." Gamora was silent for a moment._

_ "I have thought about it, yes," She said slowly, cautiously. "My people are a peace-keeping race, so I do not doubt their existence on other planets, but I am unneeded of their company." _

_ Sam turned his head to look at her. "Everyone needs company."_

_ Gamora set her jaw. "We all end up alone, sooner or later. I chose sooner."_

Sam doesn't remember much else of that night, he thinks he might have fallen asleep in the chair. He never saw the Guardians after that, he'd been working with S.H.I.E.L.D. upon his arrival back on Earth. Though he thought of them often, especially Gamora's words.

After Spiderman had arrived and taken Sam's place, he finally knew how Gamora felt. He knew what it was like to be alone.

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**hello again **

**uh, i hope you liked it**

**i apologize for any errors in factual descriptions, punctuation, and/or spelling. i triple checked and got a friend to check it but idk there might still be errors**

**my writing style is like "more commas than necessary" sorry**

**review if you'd like, it's much appreciated c:**

**ok i'm done**


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